F.I.T. students decry pattern of injustice against union

Volume Number 1 Issue Number 8 / November 17 - 23, 2006

Chelsea Now photo by Lawrence Lerner

U.C.E. President Juliette Romano addresses a crowd of nearly 200 people at a student-sponsored rally at the Fashion Institute of Technology’s main plaza on Tuesday.

By Lawrence Lerner

Fashion Institute of Technology students traded haute-couture clothing styles for activist outfits Tuesday afternoon, coming out in full force to demand a new contract for faculty and staff at a rally in the school’s main plaza that drew nearly 200 participants.

Organized by F.I.T.’s Student Association, the demonstration marked the first show of student support in this prolonged contract battle for the school’s beleaguered United College Employees union, whose members have been working without a new contract for almost a year and a half.

According to New York State’s Taylor Law, U.C.E. members remain employed under their old contract, which expired at the end of May 2005.

“The most gratifying thing was the students’ response,” said U.C.E. President Juliette Romano after speaking at the rally. “We didn’t think it right to reach out to them, on ethical grounds. So, it was great that they came to us and held this rally on our behalf.”

The student association decided to get behind the union now, nearly 18 months after the union’s contract expired, after becoming frustrated by the lack of progress at the negotiating table.

“We thought this would resolve itself initially, so we stayed out of it,” said Claire LaRoche, a rally organizer who is the F.I.T. Student Association’s vice president of student affairs. “Now that it’s dragged on this long, we felt like, ‘If we don’t do something, how long is this going to go on?’ ”

According to U.C.E.’s Romano, the union has been deadlocked with the administration over givebacks and shared-governance procedures.

At issue are proposed cuts in vacation and personal days for future union members, along with increased work hours for some student-service professionals, technicians and lab and teaching assistants. Under the proposed contract, these changes would be implemented without commensurate pay increases.

Romano says the administration also wants more control over teaching assignments, as well as the appointment of student-service department heads and faculty to teach courses via the Internet, procedures that have largely been the domain of faculty members.

Addressing the crowd of students, faculty, staff and administrators at the rally, the U.C.E. leader said, “These are gains we fought hard for in the past. Now the administration is asking us to mortgage our future, and we’re not going to do that.”

That sent a burst of applause across the packed plaza on 27th St. just east of Eighth Ave.

Earlier that morning, Romano and U.C.E. representatives met with city and state politicians and union leaders about the contract negotiations.

But it was the students who took center stage during the afternoon.

Handing out “Students Support a Contract Now” buttons and wearing “I Love F.I.T.” T-shirts inspired by Milton Glaser’s famous “I Love NY” logo, they pulled together their first rally on behalf of faculty staff since U.C.E. first began bargaining with F.I.T.’s administration 40 years ago.

“Why support the professors and staff?” asked Heather Golden, student association president and a rally organizer, addressing the crowd. “You guys do so much for us. You push us into the industry by getting us internships. You counsel us when we have personal problems. What could be more important than that?”

Immediately following the rally, student association representatives circulated among the crowd, soliciting signatures for petitions of support that the group will present to F.I.T. President Joyce Brown and the school’s board of trustees in January.

“We’ll deliver these to the board of trustees publicly,” said Richard Lowe, a student association member, as he held out a clipboard with petition for a fellow student to sign. “If we give these directly to the president, it may not ever get to board.”

Distrust of Brown and her administration was widespread at the rally, with numerous students and faculty members citing the president’s poor communication and general aloofness in response to their concerns.

According to Romano, Brown’s administration can add disingenuousness to that list of character flaws.

F.I.T. is a community college within the State University of New York system and is funded equally by the city, state and student tuition. As such, Romano said the city uses its settlements with DC 37 — New York City’s largest public employee union — as a template for funding U.C.E. each contract cycle.

“DC 37 settled with the city this July and got a 10 percent salary increase over a period of 32 months — and they had no givebacks, since the city is currently running a surplus,” said Romano.

“Our salary schedules haven’t increased since June 2004, which means our members have had to absorb cost-of-living increases for two years,” she said. “After the DC 37 settlement, the city made funding for our salary increases available to the college, but the college has been holding these monies hostage and claiming financial hardship.”

Romano and her colleagues find F.I.T.’s hardship claims hard to believe.

Brown did not make herself available for comment. The administration’s spokesperson, Brenda Pérez, responded only by saying that “F.I.T. is reserving discussion for the negotiating table, which the administration believes is the appropriate venue to continue working toward an agreement.” She added, however, that the administration has set no timetable for renewing those discussions.